The NEW / OLD Group

Photographs by Elaine Fisher, Eric Myrvaagnes, A. David Wunsch

Opening Reception: Friday, January 25, 6-8 p.m.

Elaine Fisher, Returning, digital photography

Photographers Elaine Fisher, Eric Myrvaagnes and A. David Wunsch share a special bond that that goes back nearly 50 years when they first met as young photography students in a workshop conducted by noted American photographer and MIT professor Minor White. They have been meeting ever since to praise, criticize and evaluate each others work, forming an enduring association–celebrated in their exhibit The New / Old Group.

Eric Myrvaagnes, Tar Figures, digital photography

Minor White, a contemporary of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, embraced the creative idea that even mudane subject matter could be elevated to art by the quality of light in which it was photographed. He had a strong influence on his young students, says Fisher, and encouraged them to “find our way by quietly observing our individual truth,” she says. While sharing this common foundation to making art, the three friends’ photographic styles and approaches are varied: Wunsch has continued working in black and white documenting place with a 4×5 view camera; Fisher has worked in digital color photography for years, seeking emotional metaphor through her images; and Myrvaagnes, also working digitally, searches for how shape, form or quality of light evoke emotion.

Elaine Fisher

Elaine Fisher, Alone, digital photography

I have always wanted to photograph the invisible. Obviously, that’s difficult for a photographer–unless metaphor is used.

My work often depicts human isolation within harsh, unyielding environments where sharp edges, extreme contrast, searing light and spatial ambiguity combine to create a metaphor for aloneness and searching. Since these emotions are so basic to human experience, my hope is to reach that place in others. I also try to bring an unusual point of view to ordinary places; a striking juxtaposition, an uncomfortable insight, something ajar, these are the visual dynamics that attract my eye and spirit.

My primary artistic influence has not been to emulate other artists, but to concentrate on emotional experience within my own life, and to imagine visually equivalent metaphors in response.

Elaine, a Chancellor Professor Emerita of UMass Darmouth where she taught photography for 35 years, received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon and a Master of Design Studies from Harvard. She has shown her work in over 150 exhibitions across the country, and has been honored with a National Endowment for the Arts, a First Prize in the Boston Center for the Arts “New England Photovision” exhibition which included 2700 participants, and a One Artist show at NY’s Light Gallery.

Eric Myrvaagnes

In my photography I am more interested in evoking emotions than in depicting reality.

Eric Myrvaanes, Railroad Car Graffiti, digital photography

In recent years I have concentrated more on abstract images, sand patterns on a beach at low tide, squiggles of tar intended to repair cracks in pavement, or weathered graffiti on an abandoned railroad car. For me these images function as “Equivalents,” as that term was used by Alfred Stieglitz and by Minor White.

A. David Wunsch

A. David Wunsch, Self Portrait

David’s career in electrical engineering has spanned more than four decades. Paralleling his professional career he has pursued his love of photography continuously since participating in Minor White’s Workshop East in 1966. Always finding new studies and challenges in black and white film, David is drawn to working with light and shadow and strong architectural compositions. As evidenced by his intriguing self portraits, he is equally comfortable in front of his camera as well as behind it.